What The Paradise Papers Mean for the GOP Tax Reform Bill

BACKGROUND: The release of the Paradise Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has great relevance for US politics and the Republican Party's tax reform bill. The trove of more than 13 million documents from the secretive Bermuda-based firm Appleby reveals just how major corporations stash their money offshore in havens like Bermuda, Netherlands, Ireland, and more. These are the very corporations that would benefit most from Trump's tax bill.
While the GOP wants to pass its tax reform bill by Thanksgiving, revelations in the Paradise Papers offer important lessons for lawmakers who want to permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20% and apply a very low rate to repatriated offshore profits.
In its analysis of the Paradise Papers, the ICIJ has singled out the Apple corporation in particular as one of the world's greatest tax evaders - a company that would also arguably be the biggest beneficiary of the GOP tax bill.